George Dallas strictly observed the directions contained in his mother's letter, and having started by an early train, reached Amherst at noon. Rightly supposing that at such an hour it would be useless to look for his mother in the little town, he crossed the railroad in a direction leading away from Amherst, struck into some fields, and wandered on by a rough footpath which led through a copse of beech-trees to a round bare hill. He sat down when he had reached this spot, from whence he could see the road to and from Poynings. A turnpike was at a little distance, and he saw a carriage stopped beside the gate, and a footman at the door receiving an order from a lady, whose bonnet he could just discern in the distance. He stood up and waited. The carriage approached, and he saw that the liveries were those of Mr. Carruthers. Then he struck away down the side of the little declivity, and crossing the railway at another point, attained the main street of the little town. It was market-day. He avoided the inn, and took up a position whence he could watch his mother's approach. There were so many strangers and what Mr. Deane would have called "loafers" about, some buying, some selling, and many honestly and unfeignedly doing nothing, that an idler more or less was certain to pass without any comment, and it was not even necessary to keep very wide of the inn. He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking into the window of the one shop in Amherst devoted to the interests of literature, which was profusely decorated with out-of-date valentines, much criticised by flies, and with feebly embossed cards, setting forth the merits of local governesses. At that time prophetic representations of the International Exhibition of '62 were beginning to appeal to the patriotic soul in light blue drawings, with flags innumerable displayed wheresoever they could be put "handy." George Dallas calmly and gravely surveyed the stock-in-trade, rather distracted by the process of watching the inn door, between which and his position intervened a group of farmers, who were to a man chewing bits of whipcord, and examining samples of corn, which they extracted in a stealthy manner from their breeches-pocket, and displayed grudgingly on their broad palms. On the steps of the inn door were one or two busy groups, and not a man or woman of the number took any notice of Mrs. Carruthers's son. They took very considerable notice of Mrs. Carruthers herself, however, when her carriage stopped; and Mr. Page, the landlord, actually came out, quite in the old fashioned style, to open the lady's carriage, and escort her into the house. George watched his mother's tall and elegant figure, as long as she was in sight, with mingled feelings of pleasure, affection, something like real gratitude, and very real bitterness; then he turned, strolled past the inn where the carriage was being put up, and took his way down the main street, to the principal draper's shop, He went